Waiter, there's something in my... meatless barbecue!

The event held by Cook sister is definitely interesting. I’m by no means a vegetable lover but I do have two recipes of meatless barbecue since I had to prepare something that my vegetarian friend could eat for a normal barbecue outing in the past. I was going to make a seafood barbecue, but then I realised my other friend is allergic to sea food. So I ended up with these, not that there were any complaints from anyone that day.

Tofu Kebab:

600 g smoked tofu (diced)
Bell peppers of different colours, diced
Fresh Bay leaves (can be cut in half)

To marinade tofu

3 tbs light soy sauce
2 tsp oil
1 crushed garlic

Mix the soy, oil and garlic evenly with the tofu and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Then start skewering the tofu, bell peppers and bay leaves. Don’t forget to colour coordinate.

Dip:

2 spring onions, diced
2 garlics, crushed
chilli sauce (as you like it)
1 tsp sugar
1 tbs white wine vinegar
2 tbs light soy sauce
3 tbs chunky peanut butter.

For the dip: Mix everything together.

That’s the original recipe. However, I do not have the luxury of owning some of the ingredients listed above, hence I use: sweet soy sauce + water + salt to substitute for light soy sauce; ground nuts for the peanut butter; and normal vinegar for the white wine vinegar. I ended up grinding all the dip ingredients and got a paste though… because I was making a ground nuts paste to match the peanut butter, but incidentally I forgot that the rest of the ingredients shouldn’t be pulverised along with it.

Vegetaria…n?

Bell peppers, diced
Cherry tomatoes
Pineapples, diced
Paneer cheese

Arrange everything on a skewer, remember, colour coordinate. Don’t barbecue them yet.

Barbecue sauce:

1 tbs oil
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbs honey
2 tbs chilli sauce
(water if the sauce’s too thick)

Mix everything for the sauce and brushed it on top of the skewered vegetables. Start barbecuing them while brushing the sauce on to them once in a while till they are slightly charred.

Again, I did not have paneer cheese, so I decided to use those cube cheese that have different tastes. They ended up pretty interesting. Alternatively, you can always use the leftover smoked tofu from the tofu kebab. A caution note: the recipe is merely an estimation. Please feel free to change the amounts of ingredients to suite your own taste. You can eat both straight away or as a dish for rice, salad and/or potatoes.

Hope you enjoyed the recipes!

And the round up has came out!

Hmm... this is just some random post to ensure my account is still working. I mean I have not even touched this for a long long time.. and even if I missed blogging, I can't afford the time with all this constantly on the move group of explorer in places without internet access. It's lucky that I can get a ride to town today...sigh... How I missed the glorious civilisation...

Sugar High Friday :“Surprise Inside”

I know I had been MIA for about a year now, and I'm very sorry that I can't participate in any food blogging events for that period of time. Now when I'm finally back to civilisation, the dead line is over...

But... “The Veggie Evangelist” said I still have hope till the round up is posted.

So... here goes nothing...

Hidden Black Beauty.

Black Currant Pudding
350 g blackcurrant
100 ml water
50 g caster sugar
5 tsp grounded ginger
1 packet of jelly powder

1. Simmer the whole list of things, minus the jelly powder, in a pot for 10-15 minutes. Sieve it till the juices flows out.
2. Simmer the juice with the packet of jelly powder. Shape the pudding using ice cube tray. Let it cool.

Tofu Pudding
250 g soft tofu
150 ml milk
50 g caster sugar
1 sachet gelatine + 2 tsp water
200 ml whipped cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Liquidize tofu, milk and sugar using blender.
2. Mixed the gelatine with the water in a small bowl. Melt it by steaming it over a bowl of hot water. Add on to the liquid tofu concoction.
3. Beat the cream and vanilla essence till soft peak appeared. Fold it into the liquid tofu evenly.

4. Prepare a small size bowl or ramekin. Fill one third of it with the liquid tofu. Let it cool. After it is hard, place one cube of blackcurrant pudding on top of it before filling it to the top with liquid tofu. Let it set.

There were two element of surprise here (especially for the carnivore): The blackcurrant pudding inside and the fact that it was made of tofu. Even an anti-vegetarian like me loved it.

If you don’t like blackcurrant pudding, you can always discard the part of adding the jelly powder and made it into a blackcurrant sauce. For those who don’t know what soft tofu is, you can always use normal tofu and add water to the recipe to get the smoothness of the liquidized tofu.

I guess lack of sleep did not bode well for me, and tomorrow I had to continue my journey away from civilisation again, so I bid you all adieu.

And the round up is out!
“A Veggie Venture: Oh So Many Surprises”

“A virtual cookie swap” joined IMBB-SHF.

I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I do bake during holidays and this is one of the best since I could give it to my friends as parting gifts. However, due to lack of resources, I changed all the pecan and walnut with ground nuts.

Due to my Dutch lineage, this is my favourite:

Jan Hagel
Batter:
225 g butter
225 g sugar
240 g flour
0.5 tsp cinnamon
75 g pecan/walnut
1 egg yolk
Brush:
1 egg white
1 tbs water
Decoration:
Pecan/walnut
1. Smoother the butter and sugar, add yolk and cinnamon. Add the flour part by part and lastly the nuts. Pour it into the tray (preferable 10x15).
2. Mixed the white and water. Brush it on top of the cookie dough in the tray. Sprinkle nuts generously on top of it.
3. Bake it at 180 Celsius for 20-25 min.
4. Cut the jan hagel while it’s hot. Then let it cool on the rack.

Now, I have excess nuts, so I guess I could make some thing for my best friends who are all over each other. I will definitely enjoy their faces when they know what it is.

Mexican wedding cookies.
225 g butter
115 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
90 g all purpose flour
150 g pecan
1. Same drill people. Butter and sugar first, vanilla, flour by part and then the nuts.
2. Scoop a huge spoonful of it to the tray and shape it to a crescent. Fill the tray.
3. Bake it at 135 degree Celsius for 45 minutes. However, I made it at 180 degree.
4. Sprinkle it with confectionary sugar while hot.

This is another version of it, it’s crunchier.
240 g all purpose flour
0.25 tsp salt
225 g butter
115 g sugar
2tsp vanilla
120 g pecan
1. Same drill all over again. This time you roll the dough in a foil and chill it in the fridge till it’s hard enough to be cut.
2. Arrange it and bake it at 162 degree Celsius for 15/20 min (again I use 180 degree Celsius.)

This was what I made when the fasting month was over and we have extra dates.
Date and nuts cookies.
90 g all purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
225 g confectionary sugar
0.25 tsp salt
2 eggs
225 g chopped date
150 g chopped walnut
1. Drill has not change from the first.
2. Scoop 2 spoonful of it to the tray and flatten it.
3. Bake it at 160 degree Celsius for 20 min (I used 180 degree AGAIN).

I sincerely apologize for my page’s lack of visual effect (aka picture) since (I have said before) I have no handy camera (I refuse to developed a film just for the sake of a picture of a plate of something). Nevertheless enjoy it, and merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!

IMBB 20 - Souffle

It's hosted by Kitchen Chick. I'm not very sure that I can get a good rise out of the souffle, so I try to bend it a bit so that it doesn't have to rise perfectly. It's a souffle crepe. Since I will have to buy lemons for my chocolate recipe, I will make lemon souffle as well.

Crepe recipe
250 g flour
1 tsp sugar
2 egg, beaten.
410 ml milk
1 tbs melted butter
a pinch salt

1. Mixed all ingredients together with mixer.
2. Heat up the pan and butter. Fry the batter. Set it aside to cool.

Lemon Souffle recipe
4 tbs butter
115 g sugar
4 egg yolks
80 ml lemon juice
2 tbs freshly grated lemon zest
5 egg whites
salt

1. Whisk butter, half of the sugar, yolks and all the lemons stuff in a bowl over a shimmering water till it is thick and sticks to the spoon. Set it aside.
2. Make stiff peaks out of the egg white and the remaining of the sugar.
3. Fold in the lemon mixture.
4. Place 2 tbs of the lemon mixture in the middle of a crepe skin and fold the skin in half. Arrange the crepe on tray.
5. Baked it in preheated oven at 180 C for 25-30 minutes. Don't open the oven for the 1st 15 minutes.
6. Serve it by sprinkling sugar on top of it.

All is done and it doesn't taste funny. Although it's not sweet enough for me (I have a very bad case of sweet-tooth) other people think it's just nice. I
don't know. What do you think?

Mine's up in 2nd round up!

Sugar High Friday 13: The Dark Side

Since Lovescool had put up a challenge ".. I challenge you to find something new and interesting to make. Try a different recipe or add a twist to one of your favorites." I had taken up some experiments on my old favourite recipe. One is just a slight modification of choco-chips cookies and the other one is a twisted version of a Japanese dessert.

Dark chocolate cookies.

360 g all purpose flour
1/4 tsp Baking soda
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 tsp salt
225 g + 5 tbs Butter
225 g sugar
225 g light brown sugar (or 170 g dark brown sugar
and 55 g white sugar)
2 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbs vanilla essence
365 g dark chocolate chunks

1. Shift flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt in a bowl.
2. Use mixer to beat up the butter and sugar together, add egg one by one.
3. Fold in the flour mixture bit by bit. Add on the chocolate and just mixed it well.
4. Preheat the oven 180 C. Scoop a spoonful of batter and placed it on the baking tray (keep the mound shape).
5. Bake it till it turns golden brown or till the top is not moist anymore (around 16 minutes)
Done.

It's quite nice and has a sort of caramel taste because of the brown sugar. Usually instead of the dark chocolate chunks I use choco-chips, but I changed it. Oh, yes, don't bake it for too long, it will be over dry.

Yaki Satsuma-imo

1 Sweet potato (Indonesian called it ubi, don't use yam)
4 egg yolk
60 ml heavy cream
2 tbs sugar
Dark chocolate (small) chunks
1 yolk for brushing

1. Steam or boil the sweet potatoes till it's soft. Peel the skin off. Make a mashed potato out of it.
2. Mixed on the rest of the ingredients, except the chocolate, together.
3. Make small balls out of the mashed potatoes. Put a chunk of the dark chocolate in the centre of the potato ball. Put on the baking tray.
4. Pre heat oven to 180 C.
5. Lightly brushed the potato balls with the yolk.
6. Bakes it for 15 minutes or till gold.

Usually this yaki satsuma-imo is without chocolate core and is eaten with apple jam. So for those who wants the traditional form of this, remove the chocolate part and eat it with apple jam, I put the recipe below. For those who doesn't want to make the
jam I suggest to use the apple-taste baby food. It does wonder too.

Apple jam.
4 Cooking apple. Firm and have some sour taste.
120 ml water
150 g sugar
half lemon. Take the juices. Throw the pulp.
2 tbs Apple brandy (or rum)

1. Peel the apples then quartered it. Removed the core and then cut it into thin fan shape following the natural form.
2. Boiled the apple in the water. Turn the fire to medium low and continue boiling it for another 10 minutes.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to boil.
4. Cool it down and put it in fridge.

This jam is also good for other desserts. It won't be a waste to make it actually.

I will try to take pictures of these, but if I can't do bear with my drawing of those.

By the way the result is up in lovescool!

Cooking The Old Fashioned Way - AKA Disaster Preparedness

Hosted by 18thC Cuisine.

I remember some sort of olden ways to cook using anything that is at hand. Maybe it won't be useful, but I will share it anyway. By the way, we use fire because it could be easily stored in traditional bamboo container. Once I get the proper name I will post it on, I have forgotten it since I hardly use it now.

Cooking rice.
I was taught 3 ways to do so, but I could only remember 2 ways. One is using the bamboo and the other one using tikar (or tatami).

Bamboo style.
1. Make a big fire, I mean a proper campfire.
2. Cut one section of bamboo tube, or use the bamboo water bottle. If we use bamboo tube we have to use banana leaf as well. However if we use the bamboo water bottle it won't need anything else.
3a. Put the banana leaf the bottom part up (non-shiny side), put the rice in the middle of it. Fold it into a sort of tube and fold the side so the rice won't fall off. Place the whole thing into the bamboo tube. Flood the bamboo tube with water.
3b. Put the rice into the bamboo water bottle and fill it with water to the brim and closed it.
4. Place the bamboo tube in a near the fire (around half length of your arm) or nearer, but don't let it touch the fire at all.
5. Wait till there is no more water evaporation and even then left it be some more to allow the rice to be properly steamed.

I know mere description is not enough and I found a website that explains this is great details. It's in Primitive Ways website.

The Tikar style (tatami)
1. Take a piece of the tikar out of the tikar in your house, the softer it is the better.
2. Wrap the rice inside the tikar, fold the end also, more like the banana wrap as above.
3. Soak the whole thing inside water, the more water it retains the better.
4. Put it on the ground and cover it with leaves.
5. Start fire on the top of the leaves mound. Just a small one and hold that it will not turn into a campfire size, just a small flicker is enough.
6. Wait till it reaches the tikar and then put it out. By then the rice will be cooked enough.

There is also a way to boil egg. Basically the same methods as the tikar style of cooking rice. However, instead of rice and tikar we use an egg wrapped in papers (newspapers or anything that absorb a lot of water).

Baking fish without the burnt smell.
1. Wrapped a fish in clay till it covered the entire fish.
2. Chucked the whole wrapped fish into a campfire size fire. Allow it to burnt.
3. Remove the clay and eat.
You don't need to scale the fish as when we remove the clay the scale will be removed together with the clay. This method could also be used in baking whole poultry without pulling its feathers off. In fact cooking poultry this way had made a restaurant in HangZhou (China) famous.

Stewing or making soup.
1. Dig a hole in the ground.
2. Place an animal skin over the ground (furry side down facing the ground) and pin the edge of the skin on the brink of the hole.
3. In a campfire, burnt 3-4 smooth, fist-size stones.
4. Fill the skin with water.
5. Put in the hot stones into the water.
6. Put in the soup or stew ingredients.
7. You could always replace the stoned to keep the stew/soup going. But usually it's enough to boil the whole stuff.

Frying egg. (Kind of a no-brainer)
1. Place 3 round stones of roughly the same size in a small-triangle position.
2. Built small fire in the middle of the 3 stones.
3. Place a flat stone which could cover the triangle and had been washed over the fire. Let the flat stone burnt.
4. Cooked the egg on it. I had used twigs to flip it over, messy but edible.

I can't remember much of those things anymore. My survival skill had deteriorated now that I have not done any practice for a long time (Making a campfire in here will definitely get me arrested as budding arsonist.) Hopefully this will be useful.

It's up in the round up as well.

I'm back again!

Sorry to have disappeared for quite some time, it was a busy period. In the midst of tests and examinations I still need to get some illustration job done. Now, it's all in the past!

I won Brass Band Bold award from Paper chef! Yay! I never thought I could win anything. Thank you very much for it! I'm also featured in Tomatilla's paper chef round-up and in My Home Kitchen page. I feel like patting my own back.

I really appreciate the comments that people gave me, I really do. However, I'm very sorry that I didn't get back to you all earlier. My deepest apologies.

For the next one I simply will love to go for the IMBB 20 and SHF 13 if I have the time. However I will definitely go for Cooking The Old Fashioned Way - AKA Disaster Preparedness. For Paper Chef 11 I'm very sorry but I don't think I will go for it. I have SAT the next day, must study.